HOLLISTER—Hollister City Councilman Victor Gomez last week said the Santa Clara County Valley Transportation Authority tabled creation of the Mobility Partnership, a multi-county coalition weighing changes to Highways 152 and 25, based on his concerns about imbalanced representation.
But VTA chairman, Gilroy Mayor Pro Tempe Perry Woodward, said his board gave San Benito County a month-long extension to name its Mobility Partnership member before it moves ahead, and he suggested it’s that county’s politics that are holding up an important, long-planned project.
“I anticipate that the VTA board will move forward at its meeting on Nov. 5 with approval of the newly configured Mobility Partnership (disbanded in 2012). I strongly encourage the elected officials in San Benito to work together in the interests of the region and the state, and to move beyond any lingering bad blood from the last election,” Woodward said in response to questions from the Dispatch.
“VTA recently undertook to re-activate the [Mobility Partnership] so that we could try to move forward on this long-delayed and important project,” Woodward said. “In recognition that part of the reconfigured 152 would run through northernmost San Benito County, we proposed a four-elected member panel, two VTA representatives would meet with one [Council of San Benito County Governments] appointee and a member appointed by the San Benito County Board of Supervisors,” Woodward said.
The project is a roughly $130 million rebuilding of the highways 101-25 interchange just south of Gilroy, according to Woodward, which “has an approved EIR and is, as they say, shovel ready.”
Woodward called the 152 Trade Corridor Project “an important project regionally [and] something [Gilroy Mayor] Don Gage has been trying to get done for at least 20 years.”
Woodward added, “At VTA, I too have been working to advance this project for the past six years. The state wanted us to work on the entire 152 segment between 101 and 99. That meant involving, among others, Merced County and the city of Los Banos. That effort collapsed for well-publicized reasons several years ago.”
No one seems to want a similar collapse.
But in Hollister, Gomez told the Hollister Free Lance that a tensely debated appointment to the local multi-agency transit board was left off the meeting agenda of Sept. 17—the date the vote occurred—which would represent a violation of the state’s open meetings law.
Gomez came up on the short end of the 3-2 vote Sept. 17 to appoint Council of San Benito County Governments Chairman Jerry Muenzer to the renewed Mobility Partnership.
“The VTA board did not approve the [memorandum of understanding] after I had a discussion with them,” Gomez said.
That came after Muenzer, Gomez’s former opponent for the District 4 county board seat, motioned on Sept. 17 to appoint himself to the Mobility Partnership committee and received support from fellow San Benito County Supervisor Anthony Botelho and San Juan Bautista City Councilman Tony Boch.
Woodward said of the delay, “Disputes internal to San Benito County apparently arose. Rather than wade into politics that do not really concern us, I suggested that we give the folks in San Benito County another month to figure out what they want to do.”
According to the state’s open meetings law, all items up for discussion or action in public meetings must be included on a related agenda posted before the gatherings.
Gomez and Hollister Mayor Ignacio Velazquez insist their city must have Mobility Partnership representation for the talks to progress.
“Overall, I think the realignment is important enough for us to make sure the city of Hollister is in discussions,” Gomez said.
Velazquez said the city must be included or it won’t move forward and implied he was the one who originally approached VTA about renewing the partnership.
“Quite frankly, we won’t let them move forward without us being involved in the conversation,” Velazquez said.
Neither Muenzer nor COG executive director Mary Gilbert could be reached for comment.
